Where was she?
‘They were on the south lawn a little time ago,’ Beatrice offered. ‘They were playing in the fountain.’
The fountain? The huge marble monstrosity with dragons and warriors fighting it out on the front lawn?
He crossed to the French windows and stared down at the fountain-cum-sculpture in the middle of the immaculately manicured lawn.
There was no Pippa and no children but beside the fountain was a muddle of discarded clothes, and a patch of pristine lawn had been muddied.
Beatrice walked over to the window and peered where he was peering.
‘Our head gardener treats every blade of grass as a treasure. To let the children muddy it…’
‘You think he’ll be angry?’ Max stared at the mud in bemusement. ‘Whipping at dawn? You’ve met Pippa.’
‘I’ve met Pippa,’ the woman said and she ventured a cautious smile. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe he won’t be angry. It’s so wonderful to have children in the palace again. Maybe she has enough joy in her to charm even the gardening staff.’
She did. By the time Max reached the offending puddle the head gardener, a man in his seventies, was on his knees, carefully washing mud from the lawn. Before Max could reach him, another man appeared with half a dozen planks.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, expecting complaints, but none was forthcoming.
‘Miss Pippa and the children enjoyed the fountain,’ the gardener said mildly. ‘So we thought we’d build a small deck so they could get in and out without muddying the lawn.’
A deck. For a fountain where there were swimming pool alternatives.
‘Did you tell them about the swimming pools?’
‘Oh, yes,’ the gardener said and he chuckled. ‘The lady asked would I prefer to paddle in a normal pool or duck in and out of dragons. I’d never thought of it like that. But, yes, I could see her point.’
This was amazing. After only two hours in the castle Pippa was already instigating changes. And making friends. Max glanced cautiously around, thinking of Carver Levout. Chief of this whole administration. ‘Has Mr Levout given the okay?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, he hasn’t,’ the man told him, hauling his cap from his head in a gesture of deference. ‘But Miss Pippa said we could refer this to you. She said as Prince Regent you’re in charge now. Miss Pippa says she’s sure you’ll agree. Do you not, sir? Do you want us to stop?’
He didn’t want anything. He surely didn’t want to be so enmeshed in the workings of this place that he had to think about things like decking.
He had no intention of being hands-on in this place. There might be issues with how Carver ran the palace but he was competent, and Max intended to save his energy for the big battles.
‘Where is she now?’ he asked, and if his voice was a bit grim he couldn’t help it.
‘Miss Pippa saw the cows coming in to be milked,’ the gardener said. ‘I believe they’ve gone to the dairy to help. Sir, do you wish us to stop building the decking?’
What the heck? ‘You’ve started now. You might as well continue.’
The man smiled. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.
Pippa and the children were indeed in the dairy, perched on a top rail overlooking the cows going into the bails. The twins and Marc were dressed in knickers and nothing else. Pippa was in jeans and a T-shirt. Her jeans were rolled up to the knees and her T-shirt was knotted under her breasts, leaving her midriff bare. They were all dripping wet.
They saw him and they waved him to come closer. No sound, though. They knew their cows.
‘Hi,’ Pippa whispered. ‘I thought this’d be really foreign but it’s just like home. Without Peculiar.’
Peculiar. He thought back to the cow who’d be even now causing trouble in Bert’s yard. ‘I bet there’s another Peculiar here,’ he said darkly. ‘There always is.’
‘There isn’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve been talking to the guys here and they’re saying these girls are really placid. I’m thinking we might take a few test-tubes home.’
‘Test-tubes?’
‘For cross-cultural fertilization,’ she said patiently. ‘Don’t you think that’d be ace?’
‘We might get some calves just like these,’ Marc said. The kids were glowing, high on warmth and good food and fun and excitement. They’d been good-looking kids back in Australia, Max thought, but now he looked at their beaming faces and he felt a twinge of…pride? They hadn’t complained once, he thought. He’d seen them tired and hungry and right out of their comfort zone but still they giggled and looked out on life as an adventure. Marc would make a great prince.
Pippa had done a wonderful job of raising them.
Would she agree that they stay?
‘Nothing’s decided,’ Pippa said before he could open his mouth.
‘How the hell do you know what I’m thinking?’
‘I can see it. I look in your eyes and I see this plus this plus this equals…ooh, let’s see…sixty-seven? And then you open your mouth and out it comes. Sixty-seven. Easy.’
He didn’t like that it was easy. He was feeling more and more confused.
‘Well, how do you understand what these guys are saying?’ he asked. ‘And the gardener. How did you talk him into building decking?’
‘He’s building decking?’
‘To protect his grass.’
‘What a sweetie.’
‘You talk French? I didn’t know you spoke French?’
‘I talk a type of French,’ she said. ‘I’ve always been told it’s a hybrid, some sort of rural dialect. Now I’ve discovered where it comes from.’ She beamed. ‘Here. Well, of course it makes sense, but how lucky’s that?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Alice,’ she said simply. Then, as he looked even more confused, she explained. ‘Alice left her family when she was little more than a kid. She got into trouble, she ended up having Gina and being stuck with me, and she made the best of our life together. But there must have been a part of her that was homesick, for every night she’d read to the two of us in her own language. It became fun-it was Gina’s and my secret language when we were at school. After Gina got married we had to stop-Donald kept thinking we were talking about him-but it’s still a part of me. Finding there’s a whole country that speaks it is a joy.’
‘It’s fun,’ Marc said in the same language, and Max stared.
‘The kids too?’
‘Gina started it with Marc, maybe to make Alice happy. I kept it up. It’s always seemed comforting. Some sort of a link. And now we know who we’re linked to.’
Wow. He’d brought back family who spoke the language. The enormity of this almost took his breath away.
His task was suddenly a thousand per cent easier.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You didn’t speak it to us. I honestly didn’t know what it was until I heard it here.’
‘I do speak it,’ he said, switching effortlessly. ‘My mother…well, there was an insistence that Thierry learned it and it was easier for us to practise together.’
She frowned and tugged the two little bodies on either side of her closer so they couldn’t topple off the rail. ‘So we speak the language-sort of. Why does that make you relieved? I can understand pleased, but not relieved.’
‘I was just pleasantly surprised.’
‘And relieved.’
‘You can’t read my feelings.’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘Then don’t,’ he snapped, and the cow nearest him swerved his head and gave him a reproachful look.
‘Shh,’ Sophie whispered. ‘We have to be quiet until the cows get to know us.’
‘I wonder if I can help milk,’ Pippa said.
‘You surely don’t want to.’
‘No.’ She peeped a smile. ‘But it might make Mr Levout happier. He obviously thinks I’m one of the
